Around him, half-hidden by mist, women and girls cowered. They were naked but tastefully painted, ducking down and covered by their long streaming hair, arms chastely crossed over their breasts. They, too, wore headdresses of fall leaves.
Another painting, this one next to the display, also depicted the Harvest Man in his dark cape and crown of leaves, this time standing above a lone young woman, who was kneeling down as if in supplication. The Harvest Man carried a scythe, and there was something ominous about the scene. The harvest meant plenty for the people, but the painting implied that the Harvest Man demanded blood in exchange for the bounty of the fields. It was an old belief, common all through pagan history.
Rowenna stopped to read one of the explanatory signs. Winters in the late 1720s had been harsh, and many families hadn’t been able to feed all their children. Some of those starving young people had “disappeared,” supporting the belief that the Harvest Man came at night and took his due.
She moved on, rubbing her arms for warmth, as if the temperature had actually dropped while she was there.
The mannequins in the next room were actually wax figures modeled on real people—real murderers, each as infamous in his own way as the Harvest Man.
The first wore a steel breastplate with a helmet circa the mid-1700s. He was Andrew Cunningham, who’d been tried and found guilty of the murder and rape of several young women in the Colonies, but he’d disappeared before his execution. Beside him was another wax figure—with eerily realistic eyes—dressed as one of Roger’s Raiders, a British unit of the Revolutionary War. His name was Victor Milton, and he had also been suspected of murder—and never apprehended. Then again, he had been fighting for the British. Perhaps the hatred of the people had labeled him a murderer, just as hatred, greed and jealousy had once made people cry “Witch!”
There were two more figures in the room. The first wore a Union officer’s navy dress coat. He was David Fine, and when his unit had left the area, the bodies of three young women had been discovered decaying in the woods. The last figure was dressed in a suit that was nearly contemporary. His name was Hank Brisbin, and he had gone to the gallows in the 1920s. Dying, he had announced that he would live forever, that he had already lived for hundreds of years and would never die.
The hangman’s noose had silenced his words.
“You’re afraid it’s happening again, aren’t you?”
Rowenna had been so engrossed in the figures that she gasped at the sound of the voice and jumped, her heart thundering.
“Sorry! Oh, Rowenna, I’m so sorry!”
It was only her friend Daniel.
“Dan! You can’t sneak up on people like that.”
He looked so distressed that she quickly laughed and said, “I’m sorry.” She hurried over to give him a quick hug. “I’m just…edgy. I guess the entire community is edgy.”
He smiled. “I swear, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
She laughed. “I was just…thinking.”
“Yeah. Scary, huh?” Daniel said, and let out a soft sigh. “They still don’t know who she was, huh?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” Rowenna told him.
He shook his head. “It’s so terrible. I guess at least for now we can be thankful that she wasn’t Mary Johnstone.”
“You met Mary, huh?” Rowenna said.
He shook his head sadly. “Oh, yeah. I told them they should get their fortunes told—I even told them I thought Damien was good—and to make sure they saw the cemetery.”
“Dan!” Rowenna said. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“I’m not. I don’t. It’s just…I keep trying to remember that day. They were both so nice, you know? They didn’t walk in and ask if we had any bones from the witches’ graves or pieces of bark from the hanging tree, or act…fucking ghoulish, the way so many people do on Halloween. Sorry.”
“It’s all right—I’ve heard the word before,” she said.
“I just feel so bad. I keep thinking there has to be something….” His voice trailed away. “So Junie said you’re here to use the library.”
“I’m just trying to find out more about the past, about the Harvest Man.”
A quizzical smile crossed his features. “The past? You think there really was a Harvest Man and now he’s been awakened again?”
“Of course not,” she said quickly. Too quickly? she wondered. Who was she trying to convince?
“Then…?”
“I’m wondering if there’s a psycho out there who thinks he’s the Harvest Man. I mean, look at your exhibit. This guy—” she pointed to the most recent of the suspected murderers in the gallery “—Hank Brisbin. He died claiming that he’d live forever.”
Daniel laughed. “Yeah—and he choked on his words.”